LONDON: England captain Ollie Pope returned to form with a classy unbeaten 103 to guide his team to 221-3 on a weather-affected first day of the third and final Test against Sri Lanka at The Oval on Friday.

Pope, under pressure after a run of low scores, silenced his critics with his seventh Test century after Ben Duckett compiled a fluent 86 in overcast conditions to make Sri Lanka regret their decision to bowl first.

England, who clinched the series with a comprehensive victory at Lord’s last week, were put into bat under gloomy skies and lost the early wicket of Dan Lawrence.

Lawrence, on five, skied an ambitious pull off Lahiru Kumara and was caught by Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva, the opener trudging off disconsolately after another failure on his return to the side.

Duckett made light of tricky batting conditions, however, to reach his half-century from 48 balls before play was halted due to bad light.

The umpires led the players off the field with England on 76-1 and it was nearly three hours before the match resumed.

Duckett continued to play positively, hitting a brilliant six with a ramp off Kumara before attempting a similar shot off Milan Rathnayake and giving wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal a simple catch.

Pope signalled his intentions with an early six over backward square leg off Kumara and he was joined by Joe Root who made two centuries at Lord’s, but the former captain only scored 13 before he was caught at long leg by Vishwa Fernando off Kumara.

Pope was not distracted, however, and the skipper drove Asitha Fernando sweetly to the cover boundary to reach three figures, raising his bat to all corners of the ground as regular captain Ben Stokes stood to applaud him on the team balcony.

The umpires again took the players off the field due to the poor light and they never returned, leaving Pope and Harry Brook (eight not out) to resume on Saturday.

SCOREBOARD

ENGLAND (1st Innings):

B. Duckett c Chandimal b Rathnayake 86

D. Lawrence c Nissanka b Kumara 5

O. Pope not out 103

J. Root c V. Fernando b Kumara 13

H. Brook not out 8

EXTRAS (B-4, LB-1, W-1) 6

TOTAL (for three wickets, 44.1 overs) 221

STILL TO BAT: J. Smith, C. Woakes, G. Atkinson, O. Stone, J. Hull, S. Bashir

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-45 (Lawrence), 2-140 (Duckett), 3-191 (Root)

BOWLING: A. Fernando 14-0-58-0, V. Fernando 7-0-29-0 (1w), Kumara 12.1-1-81-2, Rathnayake 8-2-34-1, Mathews 3-0-14-0

SRI LANKA: D. Karunaratne, P. Nissanka, K. Mendis, A. Mathews, D. Chandimal, D. de Silva (captain), K.M. Mendis, M. Rathnayake, L. Kumara, V. Fernando, A. Fernando

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2024